I can only think of two that actually changed my life.
The first is Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. A friend described this book as having “intellectual ferocity” with which I fully agree.
The second is Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay. A must read for anyone “interpreting” something from the past. Especially pertinent for those in my field.
Heinlein’s books had a huge influence on me also. Karl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World and Tao Te Ching were also very influential. But I’m surprised no one has mentioned Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This book had an enormous influence on me. Examining how people use those hard to define terms like “quality”, lead me to question damn near everything.
Zen and the Martial Arts
Pardon me Phaedrus how on earth could I have omitted “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance” from my list.
Maybe because I was so dissappointed with Persig’s 20 year reunion with Phaedrus in “Lila”. Then again I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the first time in 1978 when I was 11. Hoping my Dad would take me across country.!!
Cal They got rid of Tangled Web on Front Street in Salem? OH NO!!Mrs.Phlosphr will not be happy about that. But come to think of it, I do not think we went there last year either.
Well we will be there this weekend Saturday and Sunday. Perhaps we’ll see you at Derby Square, we usually lunch there on our first day. We have a brand new Yellow Lab puppy and will most likely be keeping her out of everones way…
I can’t believe how many people are apologizing for their literary choices. I’m supposed to be ashamed of being moved or changed by the works of Heinlein? By the Illuminatus! trilogy? People in my high school used to think I was pretentious for reading, for crying out loud.
Stop apologizing for being moved by books, no matter WHO authored them. Man, do I ever HATE that. If you were moved by Flowers in the Attic, for crying out loud, at least you were moved by SOMETHING.
That having been said…pant pant…
I was turned irrevocably into a Geek For Life by reading The Lord of the Rings when I was nine. In 7th grade, Flowers for Algernon sort of helped teach me that there aren’t always happy endings…even though I don’t think that was the point of the book.
I spent middle school and the first part of high school totally in love with the ideas set down in Richard Bach’s Illusions and The Bridge Across Forever…several of which had already turned sour to me by the time I read my first Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil, which began the eventual twisting of my personality into the ogre you see today.
Oh, and I was a huge Piers Anthony fan until I got tired of the constant (and therefore no longer clever) punning and sanctioned pedophilia.
And there was Carrie which showed me that I wasn’t the only person who lovingly dallied over descriptions of gross gore…and The Westing Game which was chewy intellectual bubble-gum funfun…
** Hamadryad ** I’m not sorry for any books I read, except maybe 101 things to do with Duct Tape!
Also I like " chewy intellectual bubble-gum funfun…" nice saying!
I’d probably have to include just about everything by Loren Eisley and Peter F. Drucker as well.
As much as I like Ayn Rand it was Anthem that did it for me. it was short, to the point and I liked it. I was 22 or so at the time, but what it really was is that I had found someone who believed at least similar things to me. It’s still one of the only books that I have found that come close to what I believe about life etc.
There are other books that I liked but I haven’t seen them “change” my life, maybe look at things differently but no real change.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
It completley altered my view of the world.
L’entranger (Camus) changed my life as a teenager, but it took Kurt Vonnegut and Sirens of Titan to really finish me off 
It Completely altered my view of the world.
Spell check is my friend.
1984 by George Orwell
This horrifying book really scares me, but influences the way I view things such as, the individual’s place in society, groupthink, television and so fourth.
It didn’t make me a happier fellow, just gave me food for thought.
Njal’s Saga and Egil’s Saga
Really enjoyed these two. I know they definately changed my views regarding the Norse people and their customs. When I read about Gunnar in Njal’s Saga I really marvelled at how I could consider a man to be a hero. I thought I’d outgrown that. Gunnar was too cool for school, and I liked everything about him.
On Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
First read it in high school, not long after I concluded that I was an atheist and always had been (despite being raised in a religious household).
This book reminded me that I could still respect the honestly religious while disagreeing with them. That may be the most important lesson I’ve learned.
A Taste of Blackberries by Doris Buchanan Smith. I read this as a 9 year old and it blew me away, if only because it was the first book I read in which bad things happened to the good guys and there wasn’t a happy ending. After plowing through about 150 Hardy Boys books, it was a refreshing change.
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. The pages may not exude literary brilliance, but it was the first “adult” book I read. By that I mean that the printing of the paperback was raised and shiny on the cover and it had the familiar “x weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List” at the top. It changed my life by opening up a whole new world of literature to my eyes. Before then (8th grade), I’d always assumed any adult book I picked up would be over my head. To this day, I still find it nearly impossible to put down a Crichton book and go to sleep. Those things are like crack!
War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Also Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy, which I’m reading now. These novels taught me how much of human nature and emotion is innate. I was taken aback by the striking similarties in character among people I know today and fictional characters living in early 19th century Russia.
Well, I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
She went “undercover” for several months, holding several different dead-end jobs, and tried to see if she could make ends meet with her salary. It was incredibly difficult, and almost always required two jobs in order to eat and pay rent. Her account of some of the places she had to stay (“humble” doesn’t even begin to describe it) were mind-blowing. And some of the conditions of her job(s) (like one of the restaurants she worked at) make me want to never eat at a restaurant again!
Her account of her coworkers was affectionate and usually respectful. Some people who have never had dead-end jobs (like one of my sisters) treats the dead-end jobbers with contempt—as if they are too lazy or too stupid to get anything better. This often isn’t the case. These people are smart and clever and funny, it’s just that the grind and seeming hopelessness of their plight sometimes takes the hope out of them. Also, another myth dispelled—that “unskilled” jobs are for the lazy. Not true. I knew this. These jobs are exhausting, mentally and physically.
As a “dead end job Queen”, I knew I had many gripes about the way things were run, how shitty our pay was, and how greedy our employers were. But I’d never been in quite the desperate situation as many people who also have dead-end jobs. (I always have had more of a financial “cushion” and other ways to get extra income.) What an eye-opener.
It’s just shameful and astonishing how shitty and hopeless the employment situation is in the USA. Rents are too high, pay is too low, it’s HORRIBLE. The section she wrote about working at WalMart was amazing.
No books have done that, and I have read a lot of books. I guess there’s something wrong with me 
This was certainly true for me (minus the pretentious part, of course ). The Fountainhead had a profound impact on me. It provided validation for many of my values and it also totally changed my way of thinking about some things. (Alas, I was terribly disappointed in Atlas Shrugged)
On a different note–though maybe not so far removed?–a story that had great effect on me as a youngster was Dr. Seuss’ story of the Sneetches. You know, the ones who had the machine that put stars on their bellies, and then took them off and then put them on again because they were all trying to be just like everyone else. The moral was that we should all be happy with who we are as individuals. That idea shaped me as I grew up and I’ve always thought specifically about that book whenever I started wishing I was more ‘normal’.
“Start with the awareness that art is just good. People doing bad
shows is better than people doing good murders and rapes. Art means
people are celebrating being alive, even if they do it with Hippity
Hop Rabbits.” —Teller
Thought you’d appreciate that, if you weren’t familiar.
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert
Every Aubrey and Maturin book (20 volumes) by Patrick O’Brian
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
I always have trouble coming up with lists… but those are the ones that come to mind readily.
The Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
The Gang that couldn’t shoot straight by Jimmy Breslin